Jamaicans Nostalgic For Colonialism

Jamaica’s biggest newspaper conducted a poll and got results that were considered shocking: by a 60 percent to 17 percent margin, Jamaicans say they would be better off if they were once again a British colony:

The depth of feeling is particularly astonishing as generations of Jamaican leaders have portrayed the British as oppressors who subjected the Caribbean to slavery.

Not so astonishing, perhaps, if you know anything about Jamaican history:

Among older Jamaicans, nostalgia for what the Gleaner called the ‘good old days’ under Britain may have been sharpened by the island’s disastrous experiment with socialism in the 1970s. Left-wing prime minister Michael Manley introduced economically disastrous policies while publicly courting Cuba and scaring off tourists.

In recent years, violence by drug gangs has made the island one of the most dangerous places in the world.

In addition, economic growth has long been at Obama-esque levels.

When Jamaica became independent from Great Britain, residents of the Cayman Islands, which until then had been administered as part of the colony of Jamaica, were given a plebiscite in which they voted to remain a British colony rather than join Jamaica in independence. The rest is history.